What will your One year old grow up to be?

Does a One year old know what she’ll grow up to be ?

Many a parent wonders what his child will grow up to be. Many children too wonder what they will grow up to be. After 5 decades on this planet , I still don’t know what I want to be so I was quite intrigued when Daughter No 1 said that according to the Chinese, the child himself has an idea of what he will grow up to be.

How is this possible?

Simple really, on the child’s first birthday, each adult brings along an object that represents a profession. E.g. a running shoe means an athlete, a saucepan means a housewife ( you get the drift don’t you?)

Now, this is not a simple forecast or wish fulfilment. These objects representing the profession are chosen according to the traits the child has exhibited so far and placed before the child for it to choose instinctively.

Last Friday we celebrated Ms. Papaya turning ONE . Long after Wow Dinga and Po had gone home ( they would have grabbed the objects) and ruined the game, based on our observation of her personality traits and likes and dislikes thus far, we placed before her :

two pens

a ball

a plier

a book

a syringe

a saucepan

dark glasses and a brush

a toy piano

Slightly sceptical , we waited with baited breath. What will she choose? The book was her favourite book and she loved the ball too. Surprisingly, Ms. Papaya sat in front of the objects, pondered over the choices in front of her and then wiggled determinedly towards the pens, picking them up and grinning in triumph.

Now we’ll have to wait for at least twenty more years to see if she knew what she was wanted to grow up to be at age One!

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I have memories of reading about some cultures having this type of ceremony. I can’t quite remember what my son loved at age one (he did love a small inflated ball when he was a little younger). I can tell you, it may or may not be a surprise. Even when they are in their teens, you may not know.Alana recently posted…Spring Things – Azaleas and Rhododendrons

Wow! beautiful cake! happy birthday to Ms Papaya. May she be blessed with good health, happiness and success always .

Interesting to know about the chinese tradition that it is believed that on first birthday a child’s ambition for future can be determined.

Personally, I do not think kids will know at age one or for that matter ages 2,5 or even 10 what they want to be when they grow up mainly because they hardly would have seen/explored the world and experienced enough.

Bambi at age 4.5 wants to be a clown on a day we returned from a circus, a magician when we returned from a magic show, a zoo keeper and feed the tigers when we visited a zoo, a doctor looking after sick babies when she sees her dad during his on call, work on computers when she finds me working from home. So, I believe she hasn’t decided yet what she wants to be.

At age 4 i wanted to be a teacher, for a long time after that I wanted to be a news reader like Rini Simon, Salma Sulthan etc from DD1, then I graduated as a dentist, wanted to be a house wife and now I work in IT…going by that Bambi perhaps takes after me, constantly flitting from one thing to another. hence I may be wrong when i say kids cant decide at age 1 what they want to be because in my case even after having a kid I cant decide what I want to be :-).

Its cute what you and your family did with Ms Papaya. You can tell her in her twenties about this. She chose pen! IImpressive. Perhaps takes after her talented grandma then who can write so beautifully!

I agree with not knowing what we want to be. It’s nice to know you are a dentist. I guessed you were in IT but I suppose we all start out as something and end up as something else. I too went through phases of wanting to be a doctor , a teacher , an artist and even a maid ! But I think I would have most loved to be a spy or a forensic expert …
Thank you for your kind wishes for Ms Papaya . I also hope she becomes something but above all – happy!

I was talking to a Bengali friend, and found out that they do something similar – they have 4 items for business/studies/sports and I forget the fourth and they see which one the baby gravitates towards at his food/solid ceremony. Cool right?

Who am I?

A proud Mumbai Mummy who always sees the humour in life. When others made cupcakes, this mummy made banana fritters.
And now that her birds have flown the nest, she has more time to indulge in her passions of reading, writing, traveling and cooking.
That's when she's not busy chasing her children and grandchildren who love chasing her all over the place!